


Kill Our Way to Heaven

by Fuzziestpuppy



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 4
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prison, Awkward Romance, Claustrophobia, Crude Sexual Comments, Dissociation, Drug Use, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Stabbing, general mayhem
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:40:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23533201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fuzziestpuppy/pseuds/Fuzziestpuppy
Summary: The cheap revolver that Ajay Ghale trained on the convenience store clerk that day was never supposed to be loaded.But it was, and a tragic accident in the middle of his armed robbery attempt certainly looked an awful lot like cold-blooded murder instead.  That and the fact that he panicked and fled across state lines is how he now finds himself sentenced to life without parole at the ripe old age of twenty-seven.And Ajay's not even an inmate of Stockard Federal Penitentiary for a whole day before he manages to catch the notice of some weird older guy named Pagan.Maybe the wrong kind of notice.
Relationships: Ajay Ghale/Pagan Min
Comments: 54
Kudos: 66





	1. One Colossal Fuckup

**Author's Note:**

> Most of us, regardless of our personal circumstances, are currently trapped somewhere between crippling anxiety and crushing boredom. 
> 
> Things really suck right now, and all I have to offer the world to make it even a tiny bit better is silly escapist fiction of the home-grown variety. But that's what I have to give, so I'm going to give it. More free shit for people to read can only be a good thing right now, is my thinking.
> 
> Current circumstances have admittedly made it really difficult for me to focus enough to actually finish anything, so I'm going to be posting a few fics that will be WIPs with...undetermined schedules. These are, for the most part, already outlined and have extensive notes, stuff I've been working on over this past year. I also have a chapter that's achingly close to being done for Forests that has been way too long in coming, and another for Red and Gold. But in the meantime, I'm going to try to put up as much new stuff as I can. 
> 
> Take care of yourselves, and keep washing those paws. 
> 
> Fuzzy

***

The diesel bus pulls up inside the faded yellow lines painted on the blacktop, the maze of old stone and concrete buildings nearby veiled by drifting fog.

In general, it’s a gray kind of day: the sky, the chainlink fences, the buildings themselves, the details of things obscured by the layer of road dirt and raindrops on the glass. Even the uniforms of the men waiting for them, a whole world of only gray. The driver switches the engine off, but none of them stand up. Or move, or shift around at all.

Not until the guy in front with the shotgun tells them that they can.

When they give the signal, he stands up and slowly files off with the rest, their bright orange jumpsuits the only spots of color. Just like all the rest, his hands are cuffed in front of him and the chain that connects his ankles forces him to take short, shuffling strides, a procedure that he’s unfortunately had some practice at. The chain drags through the puddles on the cracked asphalt, flinging drops of dirty water up onto his pant legs and quickly soaking his thin slip-on shoes. He shivers in the chill, unable to even rub his bare arms.

Ajay Ghale looks up at the sprawling complex that is Stockard Federal Penitentiary and tries very hard not to think about the fact that, once he walks through those gates, that he’s never going to walk out again. The fact that he’s twenty-seven years old and is going to be spending the rest of his life right here, without even the possibility of parole.

Tries very, very hard not to think of anything at all. Just following the orange-clad back of the man in front of him. Just another guy in a long, shuffling line.

The big chainlink gate rolls shut behind them with a rattling, jangling note of finality.

Home sweet home.

The rest of the day is spent with the other new fish in Intake Processing, a blur of put this in that bin, read this carefully and sign here, what’s your size, hang onto this folder, move along, move along. The standard strip search and disinfection and the good ol’ squat and cough, and then they finally give him a pair of underwear while he waits for the doctor to give him the temporary all-clear. Unfortunately, none of this is new for him either, but he sits there on the chill exam table in the med wing and figures he can pass off the shakes as just being cold. Those other times, that was a succession of juvie centers and then the county lockup, a short stint in Quentin and another, longer one at COR, but this is something else.

This is the Fed Pen, a whole new ball game.

Finally, he’s issued another clean coverall and gets to sit for another four hours or so in the administrative part of Processing.

“Have you ever felt suicidal or like harming yourself,” the nice but obviously bored lady drones from across the desk at him.

“No,” he murmurs.

“Have you ever heard sounds or voices that weren’t there?”

“No,” he answers in the same quiet monotone, and all the while he can feel eyes on the back of his head.

“All right Ghale, read this for me and sign here…”

Every place he’s been they call it the fish tank, the intake area for new prisoners. It always seems to overlook rec and the chow hall and always seems to feature big reinforced glass windows. The guards up there keep an eye on things…but the inmates can see in just as easily. Merely watching the orange-clad fish milling around in their tank and sizing them up. Sniffing for weakness, for blood in the water.

He’s used to that old game too.

While the bored lady heads off to get yet more paperwork shit off the copier, a few cons wandering by on the second-floor walkway stop to stare. He can see them out of the corner of his eye but doesn’t give them the satisfaction of turning his head to look, and they’re quickly told to move on by the guard. The copier continues to whoosh and clank in the background as he sits there and tries not to fall asleep despite the hard wooden chair.

A movement and a flash of something pale behind him catches his attention. Right at the edge of his peripheral, and then stops. This time he does shift around in his chair to see what it is.

It turns out to be another inmate, a guy with an undercut and a tousled shock of hair bleached so blond it’s nearly white. Older than him, on the tall side, vaguely Asian. His thin, angular face is probably the most interesting thing about him, one of those guys where you can’t really say if they’re good-looking or not. Striking, maybe, with high cheekbones. He stands there with his hands in the pockets of the cardigan he’s wearing over his khaki button down, like he’ll get as soon as they let him out of the fucking fish tank and into the gen pop.

Their eyes meet.

That intense gaze rakes over him with just a touch of amusement, like he’s a morsel that may or may not pass his sharp-eyed inspection. Ajay returns the guy’s appraising stare with the hard scowl it deserves.

You get used to reading people, used to making quick assessments to decide who’s a threat and who’s not, and an old dude in an old man sweater with questionable taste in haircuts is hardly threatening. But that bleached hair means he’s the kind of guy that can get stuff like that, says _connections_. And the fact that the guard standing right there doesn’t tell him to mind his own damn business and move on? That says _status._

Maybe a lot of it, as the dude just looks his fucking fill. Ajay stares back and never drops his eyes, just to let him know that he won’t tolerate being fucked with. Something about that seems to amuse him even more, if the way the corner of his mouth quirks up a little is anything to go by. And then the weird fucker gives him a graceful little nod of his head, a baffling token of respect. Saunters off like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

Ajay keeps glaring at his back, just in case he decides to turn around for another look.

But the guy doesn’t, just strolls away.

Not long after that, he’s assigned a temp bunk in the tank, packed in a little cinderblock room with five other guys. He doesn’t talk and they don’t either, all of them worn out and shaken up and exhausted. But despite all of that and nearly dozing off at that lady’s desk, it’s still a long time before he can get to sleep.

The next day, they let the fish out in the gen pop yard for some rec time. The pigs frame it like it’s some big privilege they get to have, but Ajay knows that all they’re going to get is the shit beat out of them.

It’s the same in every place, bait the fish, test the newbies, see who’s weak and who’s not. Find out who’ll stand up for themselves and who won’t. They come at you and you swing at them to show you’re not going to be anybody’s bitch and you take your lumps and that’s it, and the other cons leave you alone for the most part. But this is on another level, high sec and a lot of lifers, guys with nothing left to lose, and that scares him more than he’d ever admit. It shocks him all over again and puts a knot in his belly when it hits him that this description now includes _himself_ as well.

This isn’t…he doesn’t belong here, not even for that colossal fuckup. He’d been so terrified that day, just pure panic, so much so that he still doesn’t remember parts of it…

Some of the new guys try to stick together, a milling group of goldfish orange in the sea of khaki and muted grays, but that’s not going to do them a bit of good. Even the guards are going to ignore what goes down. Shit, some of them are probably placing bets. Ajay runs his eyes along the line of triple-layered fences and sighs, bracing himself.

He doesn’t have long to wait.

“Here, fish fish fish…” somebody calls out loudly behind him, to raucous laughter. He ignores it. Let them come to him, as he tries to build up a head of anger that he doesn’t feel in the slightest, trying to push that fear into rage.

An unfriendly hand drops onto his shoulder from behind.

“Yo fish, I’m _talkin’_ to you here…”

Ajay spins around before the hand can yank at him and slams his chest into the other guy’s. Shorter than him, but broader too.

“What, you got a fuckin’ problem, shitbag? Huh? You wanna go or something?” he snarls.

The dude just grins all cocky and shoves him away, hard. And then makes a big show of whipping his t-shirt off. Ajay rolls his eyes at that bit of posturing arrogance and takes the split-second opening to surge forward and sink his fist into the guy’s stomach as hard as he can.

Short Stuff goes down gulping and gasping, the wind knocked out of him. But the dude’s buddies are all right there.

One big guy barrels into him swinging and manages to nail him in the face. Just flattens him and sends him rolling across the mangy grass. He twists around and kicks out and gets one of them in the knee, good and hard, earning himself a bellowed curse, but that’s all he gets to do before they’re on him for real. He tucks up there in the dirt as tight as he can and tries to protect his head as somebody sinks the toe of their fucking work boot into his ribs and he hisses, eyes watering. The force of their blows is starting to scare him; he got in a few good hits to prove that he’s got some balls, but now he’s down. This is the point that they should be backing off after a few token kicks.

Unless they really do mean to just pummel him into bloody meat, put him in the med block…

“That’s enough of that, I should think,” a voice says mildly from somewhere above and behind him. Polite. Urbane. Almost fucking _cheerful._

The beating stops immediately. So fast that one guy nearly loses his balance, his leg already cocked back to slam a foot into him.

Silence.

Ajay slowly, carefully, painfully unrolls himself, a haze of dust still in the air. He squints his eyes against the grit.

It’s that weird fucker with the hair from yesterday, standing there easily with a pair of reading glasses perched on his head and a book under his elbow. No old man sweater today. But he has his khaki shirt unbuttoned low, which sure as shit isn’t dress code. Neither is his gold earring that winks in the sun, or his fucking _eyeliner._ Ajay stares in bewilderment.

Blond Guy narrows his eyes. “Haven’t you lot somewhere else to be? Off playing basketball, perhaps?” The tone is just as mild, but the cons that were just beating the shit out of him respond to this as if it’s a pronouncement from God.

“Uh…sorry.”

“Yeah, we didn’t know he was…y’know, that he knew you.”

“Sorry about that, man,” the guy that he socked in the diaphragm tells him, in what sounds like genuine apology. Ajay just stares back at him.

“Oh, I’m sure it was all just a little misunderstanding! Run along now, boys,” Blondie says jovially, and damn if they don’t all troop off to the basketball court as ordered. Still on the ground and getting his breath back, he watches them go.

When he looks back, the guy has a hand stuck out to help him up.

On the outside, it wouldn’t mean a thing. Just a common courtesy. But in here, everything’s a tangled web, a delicate balance that he could upset without even realizing it. In here, favors become currency and such a gesture could lead to a minefield of obligations. A debt that he might not have the ability to pay back.

Well, except for one way. There’s always that kind of currency too. Ajay looks him over with narrowed eyes. Takes in his friendly expression and tries to figure out the trap in it. But to refuse could also be a real stupid move. Connections. Status.

Not really knowing what he’s getting himself into, Ajay reaches up and takes the guy’s hand. Those other concerns he does his best to push to the back of his mind. His mysterious benefactor pulls him up, more gently than Ajay thought he would. Which he seriously appreciates, considering how he has his other arm gingerly cradling his ribs. Once he’s on his feet, the guy switches his grip to the hand-shaking kind.

“It’s very nice to meet you! I am Pagan Min,” he says grandly. “And you, my boy, are Ajay Ghale.”

Ajay blinks. He says it AJ himself, instead of that almost…purr, or whatever it is he just did.

“How the hell do you know that?” as he bends over a little and tries to rake the dust out of his shaggy hair.

“Oh, I have my ways,” Pagan says airily, waving a careless hand. Ajay can’t quite place the accent. Cultured and precise, like something he’s heard on tv before but can’t quite remember. Way out of place in here, that’s for sure.

“Still don’t know why the fuck you’re helping me,” he says bluntly.

When he raises his head again, Pagan’s moved even closer. Way too close, his gaze uncomfortably intense.

“Well, a spot of rough-and-tumble fun is one thing, but that was bordering on _excessive._ You’re bleeding and everything, poor boy.” And with that, he whips a snowy handkerchief out of his pocket and reaches for him, tries to blot at his lip with it.

“It’s…it’s okay man, you don’t have to do that,” dodging it and using his sleeve instead. They’re in a relatively quiet corner of the yard, but still. Sharply aware of eyes on them. He also didn’t really answer his question.

“If you’re certain,” Pagan says blithely, and tucks it back in his pocket. Dude makes him nervous, when he has no idea why he gives a shit, or what he wants from him.

It suddenly strikes Ajay why he sounds so familiar. This Pagan sounds like the bad guy in a movie. A fucking Bond villain, and he nearly laughs. But that impulse dies fast when he looks up from blotting his lip to find Pagan reaching for him again with an odd glitter in his eyes, reaching out to touch his face or something…

At that moment, the intercom crackles and then blares across the yard with the announcement for dinner. Pagan starts like he didn’t exactly know what he was doing either, and quickly withdraws his hand.

“Ah, it would appear that recess is over. Just like school all over again, eh? But I’m sure we’ll be seeing one other soon,” Pagan says, and grins, which is somehow even more disconcerting. “Ta, for now!” And with that, he turns and strolls away, and Ajay breathes a sigh of relief even as he shivers a little.

What an absolute fucking _weirdo._

_***_


	2. Cell 614

***

The dinner announcement out in the yard is the cue for the COs, bored now that the fun’s over, to go ahead and round up their charges. Ajay limps along with the other freshly bruised, busted up fish, trying to keep his split lip from dribbling blood while the guards escort them back to their tank. One of them announces that they’re not allowed in the chow hall yet with the rest of gen pop ‘as a safety precaution,’ an absurdity which would make him laugh if it didn’t hurt so fucking bad.

No, it’s only the pigs who laugh, joking and laughing and elbowing each other while money changes hands.

Once Ajay and his temporary cellies are dropped off in their cramped quarters, there’s nothing for him to do but to ease himself down on his temporary bunk with his arm tight around his bruised ribs and hope that someone remembers to feed them soon. Even though it aches like all hell now that the adrenaline’s worn off, he’s still in better shape than some of these other guys. One poor motherfucker’s face is just hamburger.

A huge guy in cook’s whites brings them their dinners a while later, a stack of boxed meals on a rattling cart that he can hear coming down the corridor way before it gets to the room. The dude that shuffles in behind it is so big he takes up the entire fucking doorway, like a linebacker or something.

Thankfully the guy passes out the stuff fair and square, impartial and obviously not to be fucked with. Although he’s starving, Ajay’s one of the last to limp over for his food, already so stiff and sore that it’s hard to peel himself off the bunk.

“You watch yourself, fish,” the big guy says quietly, as he hands the styrofoam box over. But it doesn’t sound like a threat. More like a warning, judging from the sober look on the guy’s face. The ID card clipped to his pocket says Marcus.

“What…”

“One fucking day and you already got the wrong kind of attention on you. Min’s got his eye on you, and I’m telling you…you don’t want that.”

Ajay scowls, which makes his split lip sting. “Why do you care? What’s in it for you?”

The big man scowls in return. “Not a fuckin’ thing, little fish. Call it a freebie, ‘cause that motherfucker is trouble. He’s pure trouble and he’s _nuts._ You know what he’s in here for?” When Ajay shakes his head, “He killed a _CIA agent,_ man…heard he cut that fucker’s head clean off. He’s got money and he’s got pull and shit don’t stick to him, you get me?”

“Yeah, I…I hear you.”

“Good. And if you’re fucking smart, you’ll listen, too.” With that, he shoves his rickety cart back out the door and down the hallway, whistling as he goes.

Ajay tucks up cross-legged on his bed to eat, there being no other place to sit in the cramped room. He was assigned a bottom bunk, which is nice, but he has to duck his head a little to fit. The macaroni salad is way too salty, stinging his lip again, and the rest of it bland, but it doesn’t matter. He eats it all anyway, hunched over the box protectively just to make sure nobody gets any bright ideas about trying to take what’s his.

But things stay quiet. Not even any talking really, all of them maybe too tired and dispirited for it. Also not really worth the effort to get to know each other, not when they’ll probably be sent to different cell blocks when they get their assignments.

After he finishes his food, there’s nothing to do but stare at the walls until lights out.

For a string of days that seems to last an eternity, Ajay does more paperwork, more assessments, and gets poked and prodded at some more over in the med wing. More sitting on freezing metal exam tables in his underwear while they test him for HIV, for TB, what was your last vaccination and when, pee in this, hurry it up, inmate. After that, he spends countless hours in a metal folding chair in a too warm room packed full of other sardines, watching fuzzy orientation videos on what may be one of the last VHS players in North America.

A cold circle of hell, and then a hot one, punctuated by the occasional meal break. He snorts at his own melodrama as he bounces his leg in an effort to stay awake and alert. Not that bad, just _bored_ out of his goddamn skull.

After a few days they let the new guys out for rec time in the yard again, but for the most part nobody gets fucked with. None of them are worth anything yet, with no access to commissary and no favors or pull to cash in. That comes later, and then the stronger guys will start leaning on the weaker ones for whatever they can get out of them.

Ajay looks around surreptitiously for that Pagan guy, but there’s no sign of him. Maybe in the gym, or the tv room, places he’s not allowed to go yet. He heard that message from the big cook loud and clear, but he’s also kind of curious despite it. Or maybe because of it.

As long as he can keep his distance and observe unnoticed, that is.

It’s on one of those careful reconnoitering sweeps that he realizes that not only does nobody seem inclined to fuck with him, nobody even _looks_ at him. He wanders past little knots of cons talking, or sitting around on picnic tables and it’s like he’s invisible. While this state of affairs is perfectly fine as far as he’s concerned, it still makes his hackles rise. The wrongness of it. No one will meet his eyes, not even to say, ‘The fuck you lookin’ at, fish?’

Two guys are playing cards at one of the tables nearby, and it catches Ajay’s attention when one of them gets a little pissed and raises his voice.

“…that’s what I’m trying to tell you, I don’t remember how the fuck you play it, and how the hell am I supposed to show you if I don’t fucking know it?”

“Jesus, stop yelling,” the other guy complains. “Pagan could probably find it in a book somewhere, like a book of card games or some shit. They got a book for everything, man.”

That name piques his interest. He moves closer to them and crouches down, pretending to fix a wrinkle in his sock.

The guy snorts. “King Pagan, ha! King of the fuckin’ fruits, maybe. That guy’s so full of shit.” But even as he says it, he glances around a little nervously, like Pagan might overhear him somehow. Might be _lurking._

“Well, that’s what they say. I keep hearing it over and over, that he used to be a real king…”

“That doesn’t make any goddamn sense,” and Ajay privately agrees. “He’s a fuckin’ _librarian._ Just ‘cause a bunch of guys spread shit around don’t make it true.”

His friend just shrugs and goes back to shuffling.

It’s not the only time that Ajay hears that name. A prison’s rumor mill is always crazy, but the shit he overhears out in the yard about this Pagan Min guy is unreal. Some of it has to be a joke, surely.

The king thing he hears more than once, but it’s hardly the prevailing theory. Apparently, depending on who you ask, he was also a diamond smuggler, a yakuza, a mercenary, the general of a whole mercenary army, and once owned a pet tiger. He variously cut that CIA guy’s head off, cut it off and then played croquet with it, blew his head off with a high-powered rifle, tied him up and duct-taped a grenade to his head and _then_ blew it off, which Ajay finds weirdly specific, or that he cut the guy’s head off and turned it into a candy dish, which is also weirdly specific.

Somebody else stated with confidence that he cut just the top of the guy’s head off and sliced up pieces of his brain and fed them to him while he was still alive, but that was fucking Hannibal Lecter. He saw that movie.

The strangeness of it all nags at him well into his evenings, not having much to do but stare at the bottom of the bunk above his and turn it all over and over in his mind.

“614, Ghale. That’s in E Block.”

A hush instantly falls at this pronouncement.

Dead silence. And then the whispers go up, a low murmuring from people all over the office. Ajay looks around in wary confusion from his place in front of one of the big desks in Processing, where he’s been waiting in line all fucking morning to finally get his cell assignment. A few of the trustees that help out in the tank blatantly stare at him, but there’s no time to try to corner somebody and figure out what the fuck’s going on with this particular cell. The CO’s right there to escort him down to E, and with his fed-issued bedding and clothing allotment and papers already packed up in the requisite fed-issued laundry bag, there’s nothing he can really do to stall.

It’s nearly lunch for some of the blocks, so the guard hurries him along instead of letting him take his time and look around and scope out the situation, and he tries to tamp that resulting surge of anxiety down.

Coming into a new block is always scary. Getting sized up, maybe getting jumped yet again. Although it didn’t happen that way in Corcoran, and that shithole had been _rough._ Cons and COs alike getting medivac-ed out every day because of gang fights. Hell, a lot of the guards had been gang-affiliated too, and on occasion they’d cut out the middleman for efficiency’s sake and just carry out the fucking hits themselves. Catch some dude out that was on some leader’s shitlist for some reason and just beat him to death.

But even though Corcoran had been bad, he’d been housed in the lower security Level Three section. This place is a Four, the highest level besides the SHU, and Max units stay locked down for much of the day. Definitely not like the dormitory-style housing he’s used to, where it’s just a huge roomful of beds and not a lot of restriction on movement. And having a cellie, that’s new too. A whole new set of rules he doesn’t know, on top of having to share a pretty small space and being on lockdown all night with a total stranger.

Gonna have to try to figure out how to get along with this guy, whoever he is. But it’s hard to stop thinking about all those whispers, the stares that cell number had provoked. _His_ cell number.

When they get to the big section door for E, the CO takes his bag in order to uncuff him.

“614,” the man reminds him. “Good luck in there, son.” Just like Marcus the cook, the way he says it is too serious, like an honest warning. But before he can get out a single word the guard shoves the bag back into his hands and propels him with a gentle but firm push into E. The big steel door slides shut behind him with an unceremonious clang.

The housing units in Stockard’s max wing have been updated to the modern pod-style cellblocks, a system that keeps the inmates more securely sectioned off but also provides some space for them to roam a little outside of yard time. A series of tables with attached metal stools on the bottom floor offers a place to eat or play games or sit and watch the tv mounted on the wall in the corner. Everybody’s out of their cells just hanging out and waiting for chow time.

So of course, when the guard shoves Ajay in, every head turns to face him.

Ajay pulls himself up to his full height, which is pretty decent. Stands up tall as he can and pushes his chest out, but only a little. Carefully calibrated to indicate that he’s not trying to challenge anybody, and sure as hell not looking for trouble, but not going to let anybody fuck with him either.

“Hey,” he says to the room at large, just loud enough to be heard over the tv. “So they got me up in 614. Anybody mind telling me who my cellie is?”

Dead silence.

Usually this is a good icebreaker. Or has been, in other places. His new block mates just stare at him, much like the office trustees did. That same disbelieving stare. A few of them glance at each other in confusion.

Christ. The back of his neck prickles.

A guy near him in a ball cap and with hotrod flames tattooed up his arm twists around in his seat to look him over, but not in a hostile kind of way.

“The fuck? Man, I think you musta gotten mixed up, got the wrong number or somethin’. There’s only ever one dude in 614, and he don’t _have_ cellies. Ten years I been in here and he ain’t _never_ had a cellie.” He rubs at his dark goatee and laughs. “Shit, he’d probably kill ‘em.”

Ajay decides that for the sake of his sanity that he’s going to ignore that last part.

“COs working the tank told me number 614 about twelve times, so I guess he’s got one now,” he says gruffly, like he doesn’t give a shit who this motherfucker is, and simultaneously takes long breaths through his nose to help keep the remnants of his watery eggs and greasy potatoes from breakfast down where they belong.

Ballcap shrugs, like he also doesn’t give a shit. “Guess you’re right. Go on up, he’s in there,” and promptly turns back to the tv.

Even though the guy didn’t tell him fuckall, Ajay nods a polite thanks at him anyway and adjusts his grip on his bag of belongings.

This place is nicer than what he was expecting though, which is a small relief. Especially if he has to stay locked up in here much of the time. The two connected floors and the high ceiling gives it at least an illusion of breathing space. Looks clean enough and like the walls may have actually gotten a paint job sometime in the last fifty years. There’s even windows, big narrow ones that go almost all the way to the ceiling. Covered with metal mesh, of course, but they still let in a lot of light.

But his feet feel like they might as well be in lead boots as he climbs the short flight of stairs to the second floor. It seems to take forever to walk up there and along the metal walkway, but somehow it’s also over way too quickly. Before he knows it, he finds himself standing in front of the heavy steel door marked 614. The thin strip of reinforced glass set into it doesn’t give him much of a view.

With a deep sigh, Ajay reaches out and pulls it open, and steps inside.

And finds himself in a space that reminds him of somebody’s living room. Baffled, he looks around him, his laundry bag dangling forgotten in his other hand.

Immaculately clean, is his first impression. Not a trace of dust on the floor or a smudge of dirt on the walls, and weirdly nice smelling, like good soap. Or even aftershave, that kind of smell. The standard steel all in one sink and toilet setup, but with a big mirror hung over it. There’s even a window in here, too. Not even as wide as his palm and with the same metal mesh welded over it, but a window all the same. It lets in bright daylight that spills across the desk that’s bolted to the wall underneath it. Some wooden shelves near the lockers hold both a shit ton of books and a plethora of goodies; soups and snacks of all kinds, and one of the shelves has an honest-to-god microwave on it. Just sitting there.

It’s insane. There’s so much contraband in here that it gives him momentary pause, although it’s the kind that’s essentially harmless. Like the small, plush rug in front of the fucking beds. No, it’s not the stuff itself, it’s the way that it’s just flaunted right out in the open that gives him a chill.

He takes in everything in a series of darting glances before his eyes come to rest on the guy lounging on the bottom bunk. He hasn’t moved at all, or made a sound, just let Ajay look the place over while he idly flips through a book….but bright against the dark blanket is that same shock of white-blond hair.

Oh god.

“Ah, you’re finally here!”

Pagan Min calls out to him with that same unctuous friendliness, and damn if he doesn’t back up a step on pure instinct.

***


	3. The Warlords of E Block

***

If Pagan even notices Ajay’s fuckup, that little step backwards that all but announces weakness, he doesn’t let on. Nothing mars the pleasant, but intensely curious expression on his face. Much like that day in the tank. That day in the yard.

_You already got the wrong kind of attention on you,_ the big cook had warned him, blatantly. He shivers all over, unable to help that either.

“No way this was random,” Ajay spits with narrowed eyes, pissed at himself. “You pulled some fucking strings with somebody, didn’t you? To get me assigned in here.”

Pagan doesn’t bother to get up, just sets the book aside and props his arm under his head.

“But of course!”

Doesn’t even bother to lie about it either. Ajay stares at him with no clue what to say.

“You’re just such an _interesting_ fellow,” Pagan says happily. “I want to get to know all about you! You needed a place to rest your delightfully shaggy head, there’s a free bed in here with me…how perfect. What better way to make a new friend, hmm?”

That Marcus guy was right. This motherfucker is nuts. Absolutely batshit insane, and he stands there and grits his teeth and wonders which way this whole scenario is gonna play out for him: shivved in his sleep? Or maybe just raped, god.

“You can come in, you know,” Pagan reassures him gently when he doesn’t budge from the doorway. “Get your things put away, make your bed, get all settled in. The right-hand locker’s empty.”

“Uh, yeah. Sure.” And he moves to do just that.

It’s not like he has much choice in the matter of who he has to bunk with, short of asking for Special Housing. But honestly, the occasional minor stabbing and peddling his ass might be preferable to being stuck down in the fucking Hole. No, there’s no way to get himself reassigned, not yet. Not without a lot of the kind of pull that he sure as hell doesn’t have and Pagan obviously has a bunch of. Got to keep his head down and just make the best of it. Somehow.

But Pagan’s voice stops him again, before he can even get out of the doorway.

“Oh! I nearly forgot…before you leave the foyer, shoes off, please.”

“My…what?”

Pagan sighs, as if he’s being obtuse.

“Now, before we go any further, you probably have questions. And one of which you may be asking yourself is, ‘how the fuck is it so nice in here?’ Am I wrong?” Ajay shakes his head no. “The reason for that is simple, my dear boy. It’s because I have Rules, with a capital R, which I expect to be followed. To the letter! I’m very precise with my words, you know.” He holds up a finger. “The first Rule of mine is that outside shoes come off at the door. Not a single fucking dirty shoe better pass the line of tape that I have so helpfully provided. This place gets swept _and_ mopped every single day, which I’ll expect your assistance with.”

Ajay looks down and sees that he’s standing inside a boxed-in area on the floor, marked off with strips of masking tape. Must be the ‘foyer.’ Guy sounds like a serious clean freak, but on a scale of zero to, say, violently psychotic, he’d probably rate that at a negative two of shit that’s going to bother him. Fanatical about hygiene is way preferable than having to share a relatively small space with a filthy motherfucker.

“Got it, no shoes,” he mutters, obediently slipping his off and setting them beside the neat row of Pagan’s.

“The second,” Pagan announces with another upheld finger, “is that the toilet in this room is absolutely _not for shitting in._ Exemptions exist for cases of dire emergency, of course, but they had better be pretty fucking dire indeed.”

This seems entirely reasonable to him. There’s zero privacy, and having to sit around staring at the ceiling while somebody shits eight feet away from your bunk would get old real fucking quick. Despite everything, he finds himself relaxing marginally when faced with reasonable expectations.

“Shitting prohibited, man. I hear you loud and clear.”

“Good! And there was a third rule, which has completely slipped my mind…”

“Don’t touch your stuff?” he enquires, trying to be helpful as he sets his own laundry bag of stuff down on the desk chair to start unpacking it.

“Well, we can certainly go with that, and I might remember later…but the fourth Rule is no _visitors._ Absolutely none. Most of these fellows know better and wouldn’t come in even if you invited them, fully aware that I’ll make their lives a fucking misery for doing so. But just so we’re entirely clear: no one else besides you and I are to set foot in this room, you understand?”

“Yeah, I get it.” This also seems fairly reasonable. No sense in letting the other guys know what all they got in here. If he wants to hang out or whatever, there’s always the tables and stuff downstairs.

“Excellent! There exists an…arrangement, between the management and myself. I maintain a model living environment and I keep this pod from descending into utter mayhem and the shit-flinging monkeys that inhabit it more or less in line. In return, the COs turn a blind eye to my creature comforts and leave me out of their little inspections.” Pagan sighs again, as if envisioning the possible chaos. “In short, being assigned to this cell also makes you privy to this agreement, so _please_ be on your best behavior and don’t fuck it up, or I’ll have to bribe these yokels all over again and I won’t be happy about it.”

“Uh, yeah. Okay.” Because what do you even say to a speech like that? Really gone and done it now, gotten himself mixed up with a guy who’s into playing power games. Not just with other inmates, with the fucking _guards,_ Jesus. Any degree of relaxation he may have felt earlier flies right out the window.

Pagan seems to sense his disquiet and offers up a smile for him, a real one with his eyes crinkling at the corners. He probably means it to be reassuring, or…something, the crazy prick, but the way his dark eyes go all warm and sparkling again as they gaze at him isn’t helping matters.

“You’re a quiet one, aren’t you? Strong silent type,” and when he just shrugs, Pagan bursts out laughing, a rusty kind of laugh. “I like it! I think we’re going to get along just fine, you and I. Just fine.”

It doesn’t take him long at all to get his shit unpacked and put away, not having much of it. He also takes the opportunity to finally dump the hated orange jumpsuit and change into his own set of khakis, and while he does it, he throws a quick glance over his shoulder to see if Pagan’s checking out his ass or anything. But Pagan doesn’t look, or glance, or even raise his eyes from his book. Ajay lets out a little sigh of relief.

Since Pagan seems preoccupied with reading and not inclined to talk any more, Ajay decides to slip his shoes back on and go see what the rest of the pod’s doing. See if there’s maybe anything good on tv before they go eat. But just as soon as he sets foot out of the door and back onto the second floor walkway, two of the other inmates head directly towards him. Like they were waiting for him to show, like maybe they’ve got beef with him, and he tenses. But the guy in the lead seems to realize how it looks and holds his hands up peaceably.

“Hey, sorry…we ain’t trying to roll up on you or nothin’ like that. We’re just the welcoming committee!”

Ajay snorts at this pronouncement, sizing them both up. “Yeah, like that welcoming committee I got out in the yard, huh?”

He has to admit, he’d be hard-pressed to find two guys that look like they belong together less. One tall, with dark skin and a wild thatch of iron gray hair standing on end. The other shorter and gingery with kind of a redneck thing going, what with the beer gut and the flag bandanna worn around his head.

“Naw bro, nothin’ like that,” Ginger says. “I’m Hurk and this here’s Longinus and we just wanted to say hey, and that us and a few of the other guys got some stuff together for you.” The taller guy pulls a plastic bag from behind his back with a flourish and dumps it into his startled hands. Inside are some toiletries and a few snacks, and someone has written ‘FOR AJAY’ on the front of it in large and clumsy printing, like how a little kid would write.

He’s honestly kind of touched.

“Thanks man. Appreciate it,” he tells the pair. As long as they don’t get the mistaken idea that their honey buns and deodorant buys them anything, that is, stowing it carefully in a pocket.

“And also,” Hurk says, I want to go ahead and apologize for my asshole cousin who was apparently born in a barn and’s too big of a fuckstick to introduce himself proper AIN’T THAT RIGHT, SHARKY?” This last is yelled over the rail to the room below.

“Fuck off, dickhead,” rises cheerfully from below, and now he can definitely see the resemblance between the two. Same vaguely hick accent. They even have matching goatees.

“Must you lot stand outside my very door in order to scream insults at each other?” Pagan’s exasperated voice thunders through said door. “Go do it somewhere else, for fuck’s sake!”

“Uh oh,” Hurk whispers dramatically. “Sorry Boss, we’re going.”

But before Ajay can walk away, Longinus takes the opportunity to sling a companionable arm around his shoulders. If the bigger guy feels him tense up, he doesn’t seem to notice.

“So, my son,” he says, deep-voiced and with a fairly strong African accent, “I must ask you…what gun do you think Jesus would have used, hm?” This close, he notices the gnarly scar on his temple and how he’s missing one of his front teeth and how the bright, crazy look in his dark eyes gives Pagan’s a run for his money.

“Uh…”

“The lamb becomes a lion, and a lion needs _teeth,_ if he is to face down the wolves, yes? The Lion of the Tribe of Judah!” This last is delivered in an exultant bellow.

“You keep that racket up, Kouassi, and I’ll _show_ you a fucking lion,” Pagan bellows right back, and this time there’s some subtle change, some new tone in his voice that makes the back of his neck crawl.

“More like a goddamn tiger, is what he is,” Hurk mutters under his breath. Don’t you go gettin’ on his bad side now, all I’m saying. Just a little friendly piece of advice from your ol’ buddy Hurk.”

“Yeah, that’s the kind of advice I keep getting around here. Not exactly comforting,” Ajay mutters back, as the three of them head downstairs.

“Aw, I probably made him sound like a bad guy,” Hurk says, perching himself on one of the hard plastic seats at an unoccupied table, “and he really ain’t, not at all. He just likes his peace and quiet, and long as everything stays that way he’s cool. If you hadn’t guessed it by now, your new cellie’s the Pod Boss here, and me and Longy here’s sort of like his lieutenants.”

“Yeah?” Ajay sits down across from him. Longinus wanders off to one of the downstairs cells and comes back shortly with a bible in hand.

“Yep. Look, I know that maybe you’re a little nervous about this whole business and all, and I respect that, I do…but man, in my book you got fucking lucky. This here’s about the nicest housing block in this shithole…as long as you follow the rules.”

Ajay nods, getting the impression that he’s going to hear all about these rules, whether he really wants to or not. At his elbow, Longinus has his bible open, seemingly immune to Hurk’s rambling, and Ajay watches with idle interest as he slowly underlines a passage with a nub of chewed-on pencil and a frown of concentration. And then considers his handiwork with his head cocked for a time, before picking up the pencil again and making a careful note in the margin: _**AK-47??**_

All these guys are…they’re all fucking nuts. He’s locked in here with a bunch of crazy people.

The realization might have shown in his face or something, because Hurk says, “Now E’s kind of the misfit pod, I guess. Anybody that don’t buy into all that racial shit? ‘Send ‘em down to E,’ is what they say. Unaffiliated cellblock, so there’s no gang stuff going down in here, none of that. Pagan don’t care for none of that bullshit. He always says, ‘Hurk, my boy…those days are done.’” Hurk rubs at his head. “I dunno exactly what he means by that, but it don’t really matter. What does matter is that he also don’t tolerate any kind of slurs or name-calling, on account of him being half and half, and that kinda shit just leads to fights anyways. You decide you got a problem and wanna bust up with somebody, you do it out in the yard. Try it in here and he’ll come out of that cell and put both y’all in the med wing and laugh while he does it. I seen it happen. And the guards will just turn their fuckin’ backs, I guarantee you that.”

“Jesus,” Ajay mutters.

“No,” Longinus says, not bothering to look up from the page he’s studying. “Not like Jesus at all…only an old soldier like me. And now here we are, in exile, having given up on our childish ambitions. For what is a King, my friend, but a warlord with a fancy name, eh?”

There’s that thing again, that king business. Ajay has his mouth open to ask him about it, but before he can say anything Hurk interrupts his train of thought.

“I went and done it again, ain’t I? Made it sound like you gotta bunk with a nutjob…no, just act halfway fuckin’ civilized and there won’t be no problems.” Hurk slaps him on the shoulder. “One big happy family singing kumbaya, you get me?”

“Yeah, I hear you.”

“Good! You sure don’t seem like one to talk nobody’s ear off.”

“Yeah, not like Hurky here, always flapping his gums like one of those little yappy-dogs,” his cousin says, with a big, shit-eating grin. Just one of those guys that likes to joke around, Ajay decides, not meaning anything by it.

“Oh, shove it, asswipe…nobody fuckin’ asked you, now did they?” Hurk replies in the same good-natured way, and their dumb bickering helps him relax some. Might not be too bad, this place.

“We’re gonna get called to chow pretty soon, right?” Ajay asks, over their sniping at each other.

Longinus decides to answer him, again not bothering to look up from his bible. “Ah, not today, for it is the Sabbath! A holy day of rest and prayer, as we give thanks for the blessings that the Lord sees fit to bestow upon His children. And in Jesus’s name, I pray that He sees fit to skip the cheese salad sandwiches this week.”

“What ol’ Longy means,” Hurk supplies helpfully, “is that lunchtime on the weekends means brown-baggin’ it, and if I don’t got to look at that orange shit smeared on bread again for the rest of my fucking life, I’d be happy.” He shudders visibly. “Always reminds me of the stuff we used to use as fish bait.”

Sharky laughs. “Food so bad it’s gonna make us all turn to prayer, now ain’t that something. Don’t even have to bother with proselytizing, all you need’s a steady diet of Stockard slop and a captive audience. Oh, speaking of!”

As if on cue, the big section door clangs open again, and the COs shove in a cart loaded with paper bags.

“Lunchtime, ladies!” one of them calls out, and they all obediently get up and form a line to pick up their food. If being incarcerated’s ever taught Ajay a thing, it’s how to make neat lines and stand quietly in them. He glances upstairs, figuring his cellie would put in an appearance following that announcement. But the door marked 614 remains shut.

“Uh, so…should I take him one, or something?” Ajay says dubiously. Seems pretty shitty to him, if that’s what Pagan’s expecting him to do. Like kind of fucking subservient. But some of the guys in line with them are picking up an extra bag to take back to their own buddies, so maybe it’s just a friendly thing that they do here. A little favor, not a big deal.

“Nah,” Hurk says, his voice kept low. “COs’ll run him up one. He gets a _special_ lunch, after all,” and throws him a wink.

Of course he does. 

Sure enough, it doesn’t take long until one of the guards picks up a bag from the lower shelf and hikes upstairs with it. The CO pulls their door open and sets the bag down inside gently, instead of just flinging it in like Ajay expected him to. Pagan calls out a cheerful thanks.

And then that guard joins three others that come into the pod from downstairs, all of them converging on a cell four places down the walkway from theirs.

“That’s gonna be trouble,” Sharky says quietly beside him, eyes on that group.

“Rodrigues and Harrison,” one of them bellows, with that authoritative voice that they must teach them all in cop school. “Get your asses up here for inspection!”

Two guys near the back of the line step out out of it and throw each other incredulous looks, and Ajay notices with a jolt that one of them is the big cook, Marcus.

The very same guy that warned him about Pagan, like he was trying to do him a favor.

“What the fuck, right _now?_ ” Marcus’s cellie mutters, but there’s fuckall to be gained by trying to argue or complain about it. So they both walk up there and stand at attention on either side of the doorway like you’re supposed to while the COs shake down their cell.

Hard.

The racket of their shit being flung against the walls finally brings Pagan out, still holding his lunch bag. But this time he doesn’t say a word about all the noise, observing the proceedings with curiosity. All of them stand there and just watch, and eventually the clamor of stuff being raked off of shelves and the sharp metallic banging of locker doors ceases.

“Inmate,” one of the guards addresses Marcus, as he comes out holding up a tiny baggie with something white in it, “you care to explain what the fuck this was doing in your bunk?”

Marcus’s eyes widen with shock, with genuine fear as the CO waves it in his face. “What…that’s…fuck, that’s not mine, that’s…somebody’s planted that…”

“Oh Marcus, Marcus…you’ve been a _naughty_ little shit, haven’t you?” Pagan calls out with the same unctuous mirth that Ajay remembers from the yard. With all the heavy tension in the room, it comes off like nails on a chalkboard as he grins cheekily and rummages around in his bag and pops a carrot stick in his mouth like a guy at the movies, as if this is quality entertainment.

Marcus turns slowly to face him, massive shoulders hunching up.

“ _ **You,**_ ” he hisses, with so much malevolence poured into that one word that Ajay’s hair prickles and tries to ruck up on the back of his head in alarm. “You… _you_ planted that shit on me somehow, you…”

“Yes, it is I! An astute observation, indeed,” Pagan says grandly around his mouthful of carrot, still grinning. “But tell me this, boy…why on _earth_ would I feel compelled to waste good drugs on the likes of you?”

Marcus charges.

Like a bull with a red flag waved in its face, he thunders down the walkway with a wordless bellow, dragging a startled guard from each arm as if they weighed no more than crumpled paper.

And Pagan doesn’t back up. Not a single bit. Ajay himself would be sprinting in the other direction at this point, terrified adrenaline lending him speed, but that crazy fucker doesn’t even flinch. Just keeps chewing with that cool, enigmatic little smile as the third CO seizes handfuls of Marcus’s khakis from behind and is dragged along too, the extra weight barely slowing him down. It’s only when the fourth guard throws himself at Marcus’s shoulders and gets a truncheon wrestled around his thick neck that the entire pile of bodies finally collapses. Goes down in a heap of thrashing limbs, less than three feet from the toes of Pagan’s shoes.

And Pagan _laughs._ Nearly doubles over laughing his dark, rusty laugh, standing there laughing himself hoarse while the COs sitting on Marcus get the cuffs on and haul him up. He’s still not making it easy for them, swearing and wrestling against the restraints and tries to spit on Pagan, which is an assault charge in and of itself. It’s only when they get him on his feet that his predicament really seems to sink in. Although it’s impossible to tell exactly what was in that little packet, getting caught with the hard shit is a serious offense. This whole thing has been a string of serious offenses. Forget slips, they’re going to throw him in the fucking SHU for months.

And Marcus suddenly seems to have a real problem with that idea.

“No,” he yells in horror, “oh god, no, please…oh god, please don’t take me down there _please I’ll do anything, anything you want, Jesus please!!”_

“Should’ve thought of that before, inmate,” one of the COs grunts, none too happy to be sweating into his uniform and probably sporting bruises from that show of temper. Hands cuffed behind his back and chained securely to his waist, feet shackled too, Marcus looks as if he might be on the verge of furious, frightened tears.

And Pagan never lets up on him.

“Ta-ta for now, Marcus my boy! I did try to warn you, but…well. Anyway, we’ll be seeing you later, perhaps sometime next year.” The prick throws an airy little wave after him, insultingly dismissive, and then watches from the high ground as Marcus is hauled downstairs and manhandled out of the big section door.

The heavily reinforced steel clangs shut. Once the echoes die, you could hear a fucking pin drop.

Ajay glances up to find Pagan leaning against the railing and watching _him_ now. Just casually observing him. Ajay’s eyes meet his, drawn to them when he really should look away. Pulled like a magnet, or something in thrall to a predator. Something weak, only worthy to be chewed up and spat back out, and unfortunately he knows that game, too. Knows it all too well.

Pffft, fuck that. He’s also not going to walk around this place with a fucking target painted on his ass. His own defiant anger kicks in as sets his jaw and stares right back. A serious _don’t fuck with me stare,_ as hard as he can possibly make it without it looking like a challenge of authority. He might have issues with his own temper flying off the handle, but he’s not _stupid._ It’s painfully obvious that there’s no challenging this guy…not if a con’s got two brain cells to rub together, that is.

That message just got delivered, loud and fucking clear, by the warlord of E Block.

_Did you just have that motherfucker thrown in the SHU…for passing me a warning? Is that what that was just now?_ A question he’s not going to ask. A question that, if it were posed, might end with him joining Marcus down there.

Pagan leans there all casual and smiles down at him with that same cool, enigmatic little smile, and then tosses another carrot stick in his mouth. With one last amused glance over his shoulder, he turns his back on Ajay’s stare and saunters off, back into 614.

***


	4. The First Monday of the Rest of Your Life

***

The atmosphere in the pod is pretty subdued after the whole thing with Marcus. Everybody being pretty quiet and not talking or looking around, so Ajay follows suit and keeps his head down. Just quietly shuffles along in line and gets his lunch with the others. Not sure where he should be sitting during chow time, since some cons can get territorial about their spots, but it also seems like maybe a bad time to be asking a lot of questions. So he decides to go ahead and take the same spot he was in before, at the same table with Hurk and Sharky and Longinus, and none of them objects to it.

Nobody seems likely to try and take his food either, especially not when lunch turns out to be more cheese salad sandwiches. Apparently the hatred is pretty universal, since low groans echo from all the tables as the other inmates discover what’s in the bags, and a line of guys immediately forms for the microwave in the corner to heat up commissary food instead.

“Maaaaaan, fuck this shit,” Hurk whines, but keeps his voice down. “This here’s the third weekend in a row, I been counting ‘em. They get a vat of this slop on clearance or something?”

Ajay pulls the doughy white slices of his sandwich apart to check it out, and while that particular shade of orange reminds him of a documentary about industrial waste containment he saw on tv once, it smells okay when he sniffs at it. Like, not actually bad or anything. Jail food always seems like it’s way too salty or not salty enough, and this shit’s no exception. But he was honestly expecting much worse and downs his without complaint.

These guys might bitch and moan about petty stuff, sure, but at least they’re fairly good-natured about it, and the best thing for a new inmate to do is to find a little group that seems okay and stick with them. With their ready conversation and that bag of stuff they gifted him with, it kind of feels like this bunch has taken him under their wing a little.

But they’re Pagan’s. They’re all Pagan’s. Even Sharky works in the library as his assistant, picking up that little fact from their idle chatter, and he has no idea how much he can trust any of them.

Later that evening, while everybody that’s still hanging out downstairs is watching tv and not paying any attention to him, he slowly pulls that bag of stuff out of his pocket underneath the table and checks out everything it contains. Holds the items one by one in his lap and makes certain that the snacks are still sealed up, pops the lid off the deodorant and searches up inside the cap with an inquisitive finger, just to make sure nothing’s been tampered with or anything hidden in there that he could get busted for.

After a very thorough search, he finds nothing wrong with any of that stuff. And then almost wishes that he had, as he thinks it over, because then he’d have a definitive answer to the question of possibly being able to trust his own cellie, or any of this other crew. An unequivocal no.

Although none of the COs are setting foot in Pagan’s oh-so-precious private space anytime soon, to hear him tell it, but even if they did and he wanted to plant something on him, it’s not like he doesn’t have the access himself. Hardly needs a third party to do it for him, but he just…needs to be careful. Got a lot of alarm bells going off in his head, even though Pagan has no motive to fuck with him that he can see. Not yet, anyway. Not like he didn’t just lift a well-manicured finger all of his own accord to get him assigned as his new special cellie buddy, and he shivers a little.

That shit from earlier seriously put the wind up his back, is all. Just gotta calm down and not borrow trouble, try to keep his mind from knotting itself into ever tighter and more paranoid circles. It’s something he’s good at doing to himself, if he’s not careful; getting his well-honed instincts for survival ratcheted to their anxious, stressful maximum. Sometimes that shit sneaks up on him, too. Sometimes that kind of stress builds slowly enough that he doesn’t even realize he has a problem on his hands…until something in him simply snaps. Some seemingly random, minor frustration will set it off, some stupid thing will occur that wouldn’t even chap his ass on a normal day, and before he has a clue he’s going from zero to pure rage so fast that it blindsides him. So quickly and with so little warning that he can’t see it coming or even fully realize what’s happening to him, let alone have enough time to get any kind of mental brakes put on before the damage is done.

And he needs to step real light and stay nice and steady in here, because in fed max like this, blowing up at the wrong time’s likely to get his ass turned into dead meat. Just outright killed. Gotta keep his shit under control, keep that from happening.

Somehow.

 _Good luck with that,_ pipes up that little voice in his head, the one that always manages to be such an asshole. _Not like you’ve ever been able to keep a lid on that long-term, not since you were at least ten._

He sighs.

As it gets later and later into the evening, the other guys drift back to their cells in ones and twos, until he’s the last one hanging out downstairs. Finally, one of the guards calls for lights out and makes it so he can’t escape what he’s been dreading any longer. Having put it off for as long as humanly possible, he has to force himself to get up and go put himself in his new cell. Quickly, before the pigs decide they might be in the mood to do it for him.

His long legs easily take the shallow steps two at a time as he heads to the upper level and pulls the door to 614 open while the guards call out in code to each other across the block, in the middle of doing their lock-in checks. The lights are already off inside as he steps over the threshold, but he can see the ‘foyer’ well enough. As soon as he’s in, a short buzzer sounds, the warning to stay out of the way of the doors. Right after it cuts off, big motors whir as every cell door in the whole pod moves along its track to the fully open position, then immediately reverse themselves to slide firmly shut. They don’t slam closed with a lot of noise, but they warned them during Intake that it’s deceptive and to always heed that alarm and stay clear, that the hydraulics exert enough force to easily break your hand or anything else carelessly left in the way while they’re powered on.

Behind him, a tiny red light on the magnetic lock above the handle comes on, signaling the deadbolts to extend into the reinforced metal frame. All the doors in the Max level sections of Stockard are equipped with huge bolts that gleam like pegged steel teeth, each one as thick as his own wrist. These engage with a series of muffled clicks and thumps as they slide home, and with that, he’s sealed up in this little room for the rest of the night.

And every other night as well, with the exact same routine on the exact same schedule for the foreseeable future.

Thankfully, Pagan seems to be asleep early, and he finds himself letting out a tiny sigh of relief as he slips his shoes off. He can deal much better with that, with him being just a blanket-covered lump in the bottom bunk. Like earlier, the narrow window to the outside lets a strip of light into the room, this time a soft silver glow instead of bright gold. But once his eyes adjust to the dark it’s plenty to see by, no need to switch on the desk lamp and possibly wake Pagan up with it.

The paper bag that Pagan’s lunch presumably arrived in is still sitting on the sink when he goes to brush his teeth, and when he finishes rinsing he takes a curious peek, puzzled why Mr. Clean Freak hasn’t tossed it in the trash yet. Inside are three boxes of bath soap.

“I had requested something a bit more moisturizing, but I suppose it’ll have to do,” Pagan says drowsily from his bed, startling him.

“Figured you were asleep,” he says, carefully neutral.

“Not quite.”

When Pagan doesn’t say anything more, he quickly strips down to his t-shirt and boxers to get into his own bed. But when he walks over to the ladder to climb up, Pagan startles him yet again. This time, he reaches out and actually does touch him, on the hand. Just two of his fingertips gently brush against the back of his, but that contact is more than enough to rigidly freeze him in place.

“Ajay, how are you doing? Really doing, I mean. Is everything all right?”

“Yeah, fine.” He responds to Pagan’s question in the same quiet, neutral way as before, but with every muscle locked tight.

And the real shitty thing is that the concern in Pagan’s low, warm voice sounds genuine to him, it absolutely sounds genuine. The fact that he has the skill to ask him a question and make himself come across like that, so open and honest and candid, to lie so well that he can’t pick up on even a trace of it in his voice freaks him out a little. Even primed and expecting it, he still couldn’t manage to detect it at all. And for the thousandth time, he finds himself warily examining the trap, his quick mind in overdrive as he tries to figure out what Pagan gains for himself by asking that question, exactly what weakness he’s seeking to exploit if he managed to lure him into an equally candid answer. Asks himself, for the thousandth time since that meeting in the yard: why? Why bother with him, with any of it? Hell, it's not like he's even particularly good-looking, if that happens to be Pagan's angle. Not much ass to speak of, there never seeming to be quite enough weight on his tall, rawboned frame. Face kind of plain and usually scruffy, his skin a nondescript shade of light brown.

Nothing special about him at all.

Pagan doesn’t say anything, just holds him rigidly, effortlessly in place with that feather-light touch. Finally, he pats at the back of his hand and withdraws his own, tucking it back under his blanket.

“If you’re sure. Sleep well.”

Ajay has his serious doubts that that’s going to be the case, as he climbs up into his own bunk, but whatever. Fortunately for his rubbed-raw nerves, Pagan rolls over once and seems to fall asleep almost instantly, if the sound of his breathing is anything to go by. Not snores, exactly, just small, steady huffs of air. He sighs again in relief, even though Pagan’s making it incredibly obvious that he’s the only one feeling on edge about this sleeping arrangement. No, definitely doesn’t go both ways, not afraid to be locked in here with him in the slightest.

Ajay also has his serious doubts that this space will ever feel like it’s half his, no matter how long he shares it with this guy. But it’s not like he really has to spend all that much actual time in here. Just has to be in here for lock-in and lights out, which hopefully Pagan will always be in bed for and nearly asleep. The only other time would be if something unusual happens and the blocks have to go on total lockdown for a while, with nobody allowed out of their cells at all and not just the pod. The rest of the time he can be hanging out downstairs or out in the yard, and eventually Admin will get around to assigning him a work detail to be on, which will help a lot. Help keep him busy, keep his mind off stuff that there’s no sense even wasting the energy to worry about until something actually goes down. Aside from being on the inevitable losing end of New Fish Fight Night out in the fucking yard…nothing bad’s happened to him here in Stockard so far. Been fairly decent, all told.

Despite whatever issues and shit that his cellie and the other inhabitants of E Block might have going on between them, which he should do his best to quit worrying over because it’s exactly zero business of his, and despite being personally weirded out, which he should also just try to get over and do his level best to ignore…things have been perfectly fine so far.

And really, how annoying could any one guy manage to be? Even if Pagan does end up pulling shit that’s hard for him to ignore, that cushy library job of his probably keeps his fucking crazy ass out and away from E for a lot of the day all during the work week, and thus, out and away from him.

Which happens to start bright and early tomorrow morning. And on that cheerful and reassuringly positive thought, he’s able to shut his tired eyes and eventually drift off to sleep as well.

It’s universal: Monday mornings always have this way of seeming like they start way earlier than any other day.

Earlier than they should, and that’s just a fact of life anywhere you go. A fact that’s true even in prison…but this? This seems seriously early even for a Monday. Maybe even what a reasonable human would consider excessively early, as Ajay cracks one bleary eye open. Disoriented and in an unfamiliar room, it takes him a few moments to catch up, but he was right. Super early. Even the sun’s not thinking about being awake yet, there being only a little gray predawn light filtering its way into the room from the window when he rolls the same barely cracked eye over in that direction to check. At first, he can’t even identify what it was that woke him, but then his brain actually processes the quiet but rhythmic grunting that fills the cell.

Oh _fuck_ no...that asshole better not be doing exactly what it sounds like he’s doing down there, not at any six in the goddamn morning and _right underneath him_ , Jesus fucking Christ…

While Pagan's not exactly being real loud about it, or thank god, moving around a lot, he _is_ being annoyingly persistent about it. As Ajay lies there listening and _trying not to,_ it seems fair and reasonable to him that if he really feels the need to bitch about another man’s masturbation habits (solely for the preservation of his own sanity, of course) that he should probably take a quick glance down there. Just to have one hundred percent positive confirmation of what it is exactly that he’s about to tell Pagan to knock the hell off of.

Or, at the very least, a friendly Los Angeles-style _hurry it the fuck up, asshole, ‘cause other people are trying to get some fucking shuteye around here and you ain’t making that too easy right about now, and I know, I know, we’ve all got needs or whatever, but show a little consideration for your fellow man here. So quit fooling around with it, buckle down, and get it the fuck done already, let’s go, chop chop._

After another minute or two of discomfited waffling, during which he really hopes that maybe he’ll just, go ahead and finish up, good god, _please_ …he finally steels himself enough to stick his head over the side and take an impatient glance.

And then nearly laughs out loud. Because all that Pagan’s touching down there is his nose to the rug as he does pushups beside his bunk, still wearing the t-shirt and boxers he probably slept in. Good thing he didn’t run his big mouth for no reason, shit. Ajay rolls back over and slings an elbow across his eyes in relief, and ends up drifting in and out to the soundtrack of Pagan’s way too fucking early, but otherwise perfectly ordinary morning workout.

Until the splashing starts, that is.

Loud, prolonged, and accompanied by cheerful humming. For fuck’s sake. He cracks a bleary eye and peers back over his shoulder to see what the fuck is going on now… only to be met with an excellent view of Pagan’s now bare and surprisingly well-muscled back.

And shoulders, and ass, and legs. Stark naked, in fact, and Ajay freezes in place.

Bare everything as this fucking lunatic he has to live with splashes more water and hums happily to himself. Except for what’s obscured here and there by soap suds, entirely on full display as he washes himself from head to toe in the sink for…well, who the fuck knows why? It’s not like they don’t have showers available. Every pod does, has a big room with toilets and a whole block of shower stalls that Pagan could easily go and use instead of doing a scrub-down right in the middle of their fucking room. Well, admittedly it’s kind of light on privacy in there, but he severely doubts that an excess of modesty is Pagan’s problem. Even though their door is still closed, the strip of reinforced glass in it wouldn’t do shit to stop any passerby from seeing in…not that the crazy bastard seems to care about people getting an eyeful of him in all his dubious glory.

It suddenly occurs to Ajay that this also includes him. Just staring from his bunk at Pagan’s naked self, and as soon as the realization sinks in he just as quickly shifts his gaze to study the ceiling instead. Really, emphatically not wanting to examine his fuckin’ creepy weirdo of a cellie without a stitch on. Or maybe even worse than that, get caught looking by said creepy naked cellie. His ears burn with embarrassment for the second time this morning, and it’s not even eight yet. But luckily, he realized what he was doing before he could see all that much of Pagan’s…body, thank god. Not a lot whole lot more than his initial impression of being sort of well-built and kind of pale with a lot of freckles, a bunch of them scattered across the broad expanse of his back and shoulders and on down his arms.

But then, just like how the surest way to make yourself think about something is to tell yourself to stop thinking about it, a horrible spike of unwanted curiosity fills him and he can’t help but wonder if there’s any lower down; if maybe they keep going and his ass is all freckled up too. Between the suds and the few feet of distance between them, he couldn’t really tell for sure…

Oh, my god. Ajay slings his own arm back over his face, that seeming like the best place for it at the moment, and despite the humming and splashing and…and everything, somehow manages to drift off again.

The next time he wakes, it takes him a few seconds of confusion before he realizes that he’d fallen back asleep. Kind of wishes he could stay that way too, since he’s so nice and warm and comfortable at the moment. Without bothering to open his eyes, he rolls over onto his stomach and splays his body out to stretch himself all over. A good, hard morning stretch after a reasonably good sleep…surprisingly good, especially considering that he usually can’t sleep for shit the first few days of being in a new place. He yawns into his pillow and burrows deeper into his blanket. Must have been awfully tired, more exhausted than he thought Really comfortable right now, but as much as he’d love to stay here he also really has to take a leak and his stomach is starting to growl a little for breakfast, forcing him to have to open his drowsy eyes. He yawns again and blinks slowly, sleepily…

…and then wakes with a vengeance, with an icy wash of adrenaline when he realizes that there’s somebody with their face practically in his, a face where there definitely shouldn’t fucking be one…

“Oh hello, dear boy,” Pagan says. Nearly in his goddamn ear, for fuck’s sake, his stupid blond head parked right beside his own, pointy chin resting on the edge of his mattress.

At least, that’s what Ajay thinks he says. It’s hard to make out his soft voice over the sound of his own barely choked-off scream as he recoils in a flurry of panic and flying bedding before he remembers that he’s in a top bunk. Fortunately, he doesn’t go tumbling out of it, there not being all that much room to maneuver before his back hits the cinderblock.

He must’ve slept through the rest of Pagan’s bizarre sink bath and for a while after, as he stares blankly at the guy. He has his glasses perched on top of his artfully tousled and gelled blond hair and is wearing eyeliner again, with the same old guy cardigan on over his crisp khaki button-up.

At least the fucker got dressed first, he thinks inanely, because being woken like that by Naked Pagan studying him intently might have had him fucking screaming until the guys from Medical showed up to put a nice jacket on him. As it is, just startled more than anything, his racing heart already beginning to slow…but even so, he keeps his back to that solid wall and wary eyes on him. There’s no way that this asshole could be in lockup for so long and still be ignorant of basic fucking courtesy. There’s absolutely no way he doesn’t know that you don’t get up in another con’s face when he’s go his eyes shut and is obviously trying to get some shuteye.

He’s seen guys get shanked for it before For even less than that.

But Pagan’s response to his hard, watchful look makes no sense. His brown eyes turn warm as they gaze back at him, warm and almost sparkling, like he’s happy.. As he stares back in confusion, they crinkle at the corners in an incongruously sweet little smile. Not a trace of contrition in him at being caught doing…whatever the fuck it was he was doing, watching him sleep or some shit, or even the tiniest indication that he understands why Ajay was startled in the first place.

The way it feels to have that charming little smile directed at him just pisses him off all the more.

“The fuck was that?” Ajay blurts angrily, rubbing at his face. “Shit, how long were you just standing there and watching me like a fuckin’ creep?”

If being accused of being a fucking creep bothers Pagan in the slightest, it doesn’t show.

“Not long! I was merely pondering how best to wake you. Since you clearly needed your rest I was hesitant to disturb you at all, but I was beginning to worry that you would miss breakfast altogether…”

“Wait, I slept through wake-up call and unlock and everything?” He peers over Pagan’s shoulder and sure enough, the red light that indicates when the door lock is engaged is now off. How in the hell the intercom announcement and all the associated banging and clattering wasn’t enough to startle him awake he has no idea. Pagan’s freaky, close-range examination sure managed to do the trick though.

“You did indeed. I wasn’t kidding about it being rather late, so if you’re at all interested in food this morning I’m afraid you’ll have to put a bit of a hurry on it. Most of your new buddies seem to be finished and in the process of returning already, if that ungodly clamor coming from downstairs is anything to go by. But speaking of rather late...have a lovely day, my boy! Ta, for now!”

And with that, he’s out the door and gone…but not before flashing him a bright, sunny smile in parting. 

It strikes him as disgustingly cheerful.

As soon as he’s out of sight, presumably headed down to the library for the foreseeable future, Ajay lets himself fall back in his own bunk with a long groan.

How annoying could one guy possibly be? Was he really stupid enough to ask himself that last night? God.

***

**Author's Note:**

> As always, questions, comments, and critiques are very welcome!


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